Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities, UNICEF

BOX 7.1 Nicaragua: Coordination promotes therights of children with disabilitiesIn 2002, 15 Local Commissions of Parents withDisabled Children were established in Nicaragua.Some 168 people from 42 organizationsworking at the municipal level took part, and 531parents and family members in 19 municipalitieswere trained in detecting disabilities as well asin the education and rehabilitation needs of thechildren concerned. Comprehensive monitoringvisits were carried out in these municipalities.With financing from the Swedish InternationalDevelopment Cooperation Agency (SIDA), newearly childhood education centres were establishedand existing centres restructured to operatewith active participation from the local community.All of the centres received rehabilitationequipment, and parents and families receivedtraining in how to use it. The early childhoodeducation centre model supported by thisproject was adopted by the ministries of Health,Education and the Family, and was replicated inother parts of the country.Source:’UNICEF Nicaragua 2002 Annual Report’ (internaldocument), UNICEF, Managua, 2002.in general. Similarly, explicit priority is given to childrenwith disabilities as an integral element of Uganda’scommitment to provide free primary education to fourchildren in every family (see box 6.7 above). In Brazil,inclusion is part of wider efforts to address problemsof poverty, marginalization and illiteracy. Some 5 millionchildren have benefited from Bolsa Familia, anationwide programme providing grants to the poorestfamilies to send their children to school. 115 This programmeis being implemented along with a nationalinitiative on inclusive education and is further strengthenedby municipal level capacity-building efforts. 116 Theexperience of Brazil will provide valuable knowledgeabout the ways in which the special needs of childrenwith disabilities can best be addressed in such largescale,multidimensional programmes.These examples show that inclusive initiatives canpotentially benefit excluded children collectively.Separate budgets for different excluded groupsof children – children living on the street, workingchildren and so on – can result in the inefficientdistribution of resources and an overlap of provision.Inclusion has also been linked to fundamentaldemocratic processes, including participation in civilsociety and in voting and local decision-making. 117Non-governmental organizations and internationalorganizations have the potential to act as catalystsat the national level, raising awareness of disabilityissues and bringing together diverse actorssuch as government ministries, local authorities,development agencies and children with disabilitiesand their families. Box 7.1 provides an example ofinitiatives taken in this respect through UNICEF’scooperation in Nicaragua.The rights of children with disabilities are oftenmost effectively promoted when ’disability issues’do not come under the responsibility of a singleministry. The mainstreaming of disability issues intoexisting programmes and throughout establishedsectors, such as health, education and social welfareministries, might still involve establishing a focal pointfor disability to ensure that children with disabilitiesare included in all programmes. Without this,disability issues are in danger of being submergedand overlooked.One effective initiative has been to establish a nationalcoordination committee that oversees disabilityissues in all ministries and at different administrativelevels to ensure intersectoral coordination. Organizationsof disabled persons should always be fullyrepresented on an equal basis. In Turkey, for example,intersectoral coordination has been promoted throughthe establishment of a coordinating agency, the Administrationof Disabled Persons. 118 An alternative isrepresented by South Africa, where both the Officeon the Rights of the Child, and the Office on the Statusof Disabled Persons, which are responsible forthe Integrated National Disability Strategy, are basedin the President’s Office. 119The development of national legislation and policy toaddress disability issues is an opportunity to ensurethat public spaces, buildings, recreation areas andtransport systems are conceived or modified in sucha way that they can be used by all citizens and thatgovernment departments themselves take a lead inthe employment of persons with disabilities. In thisregard, a number of countries have made notableprogress in modifying access to streets, buses, trainsand some buildings for persons with disabilities.Access is not only a matter concerning the physicalenvironment but involves enabling children with disabilitiesto overcome barriers to communication andday-to-day interaction with others. For example, signlanguage has been given the status of mother tongueunder Finland’s new school legislation. 120 In Centraland Southern Africa, Braille materials and the provisionof trained sign language interpreters are madeavailable by many governments in the region. 121As regards entry into the workforce for young personswith disabilities who have reached the age of accessto employment, governments in many Europeanand Asian countries have introduced legislation andregulations that require employers to reserve a certainquota of jobs for persons with disabilities. Othercountries have introduced anti-discrimination lawsthat make it unlawful for employers to discriminate on33 Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities Innocenti Digest No. 13